Are we an area of Muppets?!

Every few years or so, I start hearing the same old complaint from people I meet with. That there’s a ‘shortage of skills’, and ‘it’s getting really difficult to recruit’ here in the North East.

I’ve heard it so many times now that you’d think it would be easier if I just nodded, smiled and agreed with them.

But I just can’t. Because, honestly, what they’re saying is a load of rubbish! Every time I hear it, I feel like delivering them a swift karate-chop…Miss Piggy style!

Talent needs to be developed!

Why? Well, to tweak a quote from that same pig, “Talent is in the eye of the beholder…and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.”

Skills are just like a natural resource; they exist in a raw state – ‘talent’, but you only really get the best value from that raw material if you develop it. And just like some of our earth’s natural resources, unless we look after and sustain them, the pool will eventually dry up.

So, if we are facing a shortage of skills, it’s because we haven’t developed and nurtured people with talent.

The trouble is, I always seem to hear the same excuses as to why companies aren’t investing in talent development;

We’re in a tough economic climate, like we are now, where although companies have the time to develop people, money is tight. Or…

Business is going well; so although the company is in a position to fund training or take on interns, they’re too busy operationally to make commitments.

It’s a vicious circle, but companies are going to have to break it at some point.

Maybe we are an area of Muppets… think of our aging workforce; full of people like Statler and Waldoft. Eventually these talents will retire from the workforce and leave a considerable skills gap behind them. Unless we start developing people now, what will we do in years to come?

Meanwhile, people like Kermit’s little nephew, ‘Robin the Frog’, are left unemployed. He’s a clever and talented little soul, but he has no experience. Just like many other talented, but unemployed, school leavers, graduates or semi-skilled employees, he’s not had the chance to reach his full potential. Because companies focus so much on looking for ‘finished article’ employees, people like Robin are being overlooked. If only a company would take them on as apprentice or develop them; think how much it would benefit them if they were able to gain a little experience and really develop some transferrable skill sets.

Too many companies are just burying their heads in the sand; hoping someone else will take responsibility for developing new talent and that in a few years time, the skills pool will grow and sort itself out. But unless we make a conscious effort, as businesses, to select our people properly (by which I mean for talent and behaviour and then develop them) we’re going to end up in exactly the same situation a few years down the line.

We are facing a skills shortage because of the way our education system is set up. UK pupils are taught from a young age that university is the ultimate goal, those who dont make it already feel that they are failures and those that do are taking courses that are administrative heavy rather than physics and chemistry based. Universities are creating degrees for almost every role imaginable and with that the traditional degrees in engineering are being ignored for the easier option of Business Management, Human Resources and Corporate Communications. I find it near impossible to find young British graduate engineers but extremely easy to find young Nigerian graduate engineers. The issue that will cause companies next year though is that the UK government has announced the withdrawal of the post study visa. Its all well and good stating we are a area of muppets because we do not nurture talent but when that talent isnt qualified for the roles on offer in the area then there is very little we can do to change that. From RGU’s Annual Review you can see from the 10000 full time students last year that only around 3300 were taking a technical course and 902 of those came from outside the EU. that leaves 2400 students in the Faculty of Design and Technology but that also covers all computing and art degrees as well. When a third of the graduates cant be employed because of visa issues and only around a third of the remaining candidates are taking engineering courses in an area that is so reliant on the engineering sector those figures dont bode well for the future of engineering in the North East.

Karen, I totally agree!!! I am currently working with an offshore agency called OMS and we get literally hundreds of calls a week from people desperate to get the chance to work offshore!!! A lot of these people have transferrable skills and would be an asset to any company who was prepared to invest a little time and effort in them. Instead, we are constantly asked for Toolpushers, Drillers and Engineers etc with offshore experience and a passport. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t know anyone who was born with offshore experience and a passport???!!! It is all very frustrating as nobody seems to be prepared to invest and “give people a chance!!!” (rant over)

Well said Karen, I totally agree. Many organisations always come up with an excuse not to develop their people as you have pointed out. In tough times the development and training budget is always first to get the cuts!

Brian I also agree with your point about the technical/ engineering shortage, but we do need to place more emphasis on bringing our UK based people to the level required.

I’ve seen some really impressive outcomes from the Governments Modern Apprentice scheme particularly in the North East that addresses this and offers funding for companies to take on youngsters and develop them so they can go on and take advantage of the many opportunities available to them. Alison

While I agree with Brian that schools don’t seem to encourage enough people towards engineering etc by making it exciting enough, I think that there’s a lot to be said for Karen’s “area of muppets” argument. I have a friend with a lot of experience in Business Development, who’s been job searching for months now as he has “no oil and gas experience”. I’ve watched a very hard working talented person be turned down for interviews for admin work because she’d never worked directly in the sector before.

From a work perspective, I have a recent University of Aberdeen graduate – extremely keen talented chap with an MSc in Safety and Reliability Engineering. This is one of our courses designed to get people into industry, http://www.abdn.ac.uk/prospectus/pgrad/study/taught.php?code=safety) but he can’t find employment as he doesn’t have ‘experience’ yet. I certainly didn’t have his focus or drive at his age, but I can see how disheartened he’s getting.

Anyone that thinks Aberdeen (the one place in Britain that didn’t really feel the latest ‘recession) has a skills shortage just isn’t looking hard enough!!! Definitely deserve the Karate chop!

Fully agree with you. I’m lucky enough to work for an Aberdeen-based IT company that aren’t too precious about peper, and hire on potential. They scoop up people after School/College/Uni and see them through their full career. On all the clients I work at I see staff people that are forgotten about, left in one place because they can do their job efficiently enough. It’s dead-man’s-shoes everywhere…

I think part of the problem is individual’s complacency though? With jobs and fair salaries in abundance up here it’s oh-too-easy for people to coast…

[…] A key cause of the shortage has been a prolonged lack of investment in staff training and development. In fact it was only at the tail end of last year that we too featured a blog on the issue (Are We an Area of Muppets?) […]